


Collage Potential

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: AKA Jonah [6]
Category: Glee
Genre: Babies, Brotherly Bonding, Bundt Cake, Canon Jewish Character, Colic, Euphemisms, Friendship, Gen, Keeping Your Goyim In Order, Past Relationship(s), Relationship Advice, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 02:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8269688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: Babies don't sleep through the night. That's not how it works.





	

Joel’s crying crescendos, falls off, and then starts to swell again. Kurt abandons his attempt to muffle the sound—or smother himself to unconsciousness—with his pillow and sits up, staring at his alarm clock with dismay. Even after several hard blinks the clock still insists the current time is 2:06, so Kurt stands, feeling around on the floor with his feet for his slippers. If he’s awake, he at least has an obligation to check the basement to make sure Puck isn’t sick or somehow sleeping through the loud, persistent crying. 

Kurt tiptoes down the hallway, hopefully avoiding being heard over the baby. When he reaches the door to the basement, he sees that it’s open, which at least explains the noise level. He quietly creeps down the stairs, one slow step at a time, listening as he goes. He doesn’t _hear_ Puck, though admittedly, that might just be due to Joel’s volume. 

“Puck?” Kurt whispers as he reaches the bottom to the steps, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. 

There’s no answer, but a few moments later, Joel’s crying gets closer as Puck walks across the room. He startles a little when he sees Kurt, then lifts one hand to wave. Puck stops in his walking and turns towards the stairs. “Hey,” Puck says, barely audible over Joel. 

“Is everything alright?” Kurt asks, matching his volume to Puck’s. “I heard the crying and got worried.”

“It’s his favorite nighttime hobby. He’ll wear himself out in another hour, maybe,” Puck says. 

Kurt frowns. “Wait. He does this every night?”

“Yeah, the internet says it’s colic,” Puck says as he shifts Joel to his other shoulder, still patting his back. 

“That’s terrible! Can’t you take him to the doctor?”

Puck looks puzzled. “Why would I do that? They’d just tell me the same thing the internet did.” 

“This can’t be healthy for either of you!” Kurt insists. 

“He has to outgrow it, is all,” Puck says. He walks over to the bottle warmer and turns it on. 

“When’s the last time either of you had a full night’s sleep?” Kurt asks. 

“Uhh… babies don’t sleep through the night,” Puck says. “That’s not how it works.” 

“Of course they do.”

“No,” Puck says, shaking his head. “They really don’t. Most of ‘em don’t cry for a hour or more when they do wake up, but they don’t sleep all night.” 

“I saw a segment on it on _Toledo at Sunrise_ ,” Kurt says. “They had an expert on the show and everything. She’s a professional sleep trainer.”

Puck stares at Kurt for several moments, then shakes his head slowly with a half-smile on his face. “So first of all that’s for older babies, and apparently it’s a big controversy,” Puck says. “I spent an entire afternoon reading about it, which was less time than I spent reading car seat wars.” 

“What on earth is a car seat war?” 

“About what kind of car seat to use when, and what brand is the safest, and all of that. You’ve got to be seriously rich to afford some of those seats! A bunch of people swear by this airplane seat company.” 

“Airplane seats?” Kurt says. “For cars?”

“No, they like, started out in airplanes or something,” Puck says. “It’s crazy. There’s all kinds of baby wars.” 

“I had no idea parenting involved so much drama!” Kurt says. 

“Yeah?” Puck says, putting the bottle in the bottle warmer and bouncing Joel a little. He smirks at Kurt. “Rethinking your stance on single dads?” 

“Ohhhh no. No, no, no,” Kurt says quickly, waving his hands in front of him to indicate his depth of feeling. “Completely _wrong_ kind of drama. Totally wrong.”

Puck laughs. “You never know. You might have strong feelings about pacifier use.” 

“I do not. I promise.”

“Sure,” Puck says, looking back he’s barely holding back more laughter. He picks up the bottle a moment later and offers it to Joel, who does stop screaming to take it. “Phew. Buddy, you’re loud for a little thing.” 

Kurt looks at Joel dubiously. “Do you… need me to take him for the night?” he asks, managing to avoid wincing or anything. 

“Nah, we’re good, aren’t we, Joel?” Puck says. “Usually he’ll eat for a bit, then scream for awhile before he sleeps again. Some people think it’s an immature nervous system, which probably make sense.” He walks over to the bed, sitting cross-legged with his back against the pillow. “You can sit if you want,” he says, nodding towards the end of the bed. 

“Sure.” Kurt sits on the bed. “But you’re holding up? Even with the screaming?”

“Yeah. He’s turned out to be kinda cool,” Puck says. “Who knew, huh?” 

Kurt shakes his head. “Who knew,” he agrees. 

“So, Kurt,” Puck says almost formally, even though he looks like he’s having trouble keeping a straight face. “I have an important question to ask you.” 

“Okay,” Kurt says, bracing himself. 

“I have to keep my goyim in order,” Puck says, more to himself than Kurt, and then he looks up. “In all seriousness, dude, are you over the Finn thing?” 

Kurt can hear himself spluttering before he musters an, “Excuse me? The what?”

“The Finn thing,” Puck repeats. “The thing where you spent most of a school year trying to get with him.” 

“I—I didn’t!”

“It was at least two-thirds of it,” Puck says. “Probably closer to three-fourths.” 

Kurt’s face starts to turn pink. “I’m not sure what Finn’s told you, but—”

“Uh-huh. I’m speaking as an observer.” Puck pauses. “Okay, and an occasional eavesdropper and shameless gossip, but mostly as an observer.” 

Kurt _hmphs_ quietly. “Fine. Yes, I’m over my _small_ crush on Finn.”

“‘Cause it’s a little awkward, all of us hanging out, if you aren’t,” Puck says. “And it wasn’t _small_. C’mon, dude, you’re putting a little too much effort into skirting this.” 

“I’m over it! I just said I’m over it,” Kurt says. 

“Joel’s not going to tell anyone. When?” 

“Since the basement incident, if you must know.”

“I must,” Puck says wryly. “Don’t get me wrong, that makes sense, but it’s not like I’m going to think bad about you if it was later than that.” 

Kurt shakes his head. “No. That was it, more or less.”

“More or less?” 

“You know,” Kurt says, shrugging. “The crumbling of the fantasy.”

Puck nods, dropping his gaze to look at Joel for close to a minute. “So now that you know him and not some image of him, it’s easier?” 

Kurt nods as well. “It is.”

“Huh.” Puck sets the bottle down as Joel finishes it, lifting Joel up to his shoulder to burp, and it almost sounds as if Puck whispers something, his lips against Joel’s head. “Who was your first celebrity crush?” 

“Ricky Martin,” Kurt confesses. “You?”

“Nicole Kidman,” Puck says immediately. “And Legolas. _Not_ Orlando Bloom. Legolas.” 

Kurt laughs softly. “Oh my.”

“Come on, the way he looked in those posters?” 

“Not really my type, I guess.”

“I didn’t say I was going to go find an elf to date _now_ ,” Puck says. “At age eight, though?” 

“To each his own, I suppose,” Kurt says. 

“Maybe,” Puck says, sighing a little as Joel starts fussing. “He’s winding up again. I bet our tastes aren’t _that_ different. I wouldn’t date a single father, either.” 

“That would be a lot of children for a teenage couple, if you would,” Kurt says. 

Puck laughs over Joel’s slightly louder cries. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t have before, either.” 

“What about a single mother?”

“Honestly?” Puck shakes his head. “Single mother implies I’m not the dad, right? Which means there’s some other guy out there who might start a fight with me or whatever. I always kind of appreciated my mom for that, at least. Not bringing home a stepdad, I mean.” 

“Hmm. Finn might agree with you on that,” Kurt says. 

“Where do you think I figured it out?” Puck says. “You never saw the guys Carole dated when we were kids.” 

“I’m sure my dad is a step up.”

Puck laughs. “Good pun.” 

“It’s very late,” Kurt says. “I can’t be responsible for puns after midnight.”

“I’m just saying, I don’t think you and I are looking for anything that different, is all,” Puck says. 

“Great. Now I have to compete with _you_ for boys, too?” Kurt asks. “Can we call them like shotgun?”

“Single dad, remember?” Puck says. “I’m not actually going to be competition in most cases.” He pauses for several seconds, and when he continues, he stares at Joel, not making anything close to eye contact with Kurt. “Anyway, a girl could always, what’s the word? Divert. Divert my attention.” 

“Hmph,” Kurt says. 

“You don’t think that’s possible?” Puck asks, and his voice sounds odd, like he’s straining to be casual. 

“No, I’m sure it’s possible. I’m not entirely sure it’s probable.”

“Yeah?” Puck says in the same voice. It sounds more and more like Puck’s fishing for something with each new question. 

“Well, our conversations have been rather pointedly centered around _boys_ ,” Kurt says. 

Puck winces a little. “Okay. Fair enough. Any other observations?” It sounds even more like he’s fishing, and his voice is softer than it ever is during the daylight hours. 

“Oh, you know, nothing too specific,” Kurt says. “Why? Is there something I should observe that I’m missing?”

“Oh, um, no,” Puck says unconvincingly. 

“There is,” Kurt insists. 

“Maybe,” Puck admits after a few seconds pass. “It’s good, see, even you—my goyim faux-brother—haven’t picked up on it.” He shifts Joel around in his arms, otherwise ignoring the sounds of Joel fussing. 

“Hmm.” Kurt narrows his eyes as he thinks about possibly boys, or possibly just one boy, Puck may have inadvertently mentioned. The only name that really springs to mind is Finn, however, which Kurt _almost_ brushes off. He probably wouldn’t even give it a second thought if not for the earlier inquisition into whether or not Kurt himself was over Finn. “Wait a minute,” Kurt says. “Is this why you were so insistent I take a firm stance on being over Finn?”

“No,” Puck says. “That was Finn. Or, well, so I could tell Finn, so when we all hang out, it’s less awkward.” 

“Okay,” Kurt says, admittedly sounding dubious. 

“For real,” Puck insists. He puts Joel up on one shoulder, patting his back. “See, we’re _alllll_ good then. No awkwardness. Nobody knows anything.” 

“I might know a thing or two,” Kurt says. “I could keep it between us, though. Just two faux-brothers, not discussing any latent feelings for mutual friends.”

Puck makes a face at Kurt over Joel’s back, and Joel’s fussing falls to a quieter level. “Seriously, I asked if you were over him because of Finn. The follow-up might’ve been… different motivation.” 

“Just be careful. He’s made his feelings about those kinds of feelings pretty clear,” Kurt says. 

“ _I_ know that. I knew it, even, I guess.” Puck stops and shrugs. “It’s not really what you think, though. It’s not really about guys versus girls.” 

“It sounds like it’s about guys versus girls, though.”

“Yeah, I know, and maybe it is? But you’ve watched him most of a year, right? You see how he is about other people and their opinions?” Puck asks. “Shh, yeah, you’re almost there, Joel.” He pats Joel’s back a little slower.

“They matter to him. A _lot_ ,” Kurt says. “Too much.”

“Right, so, it doesn’t really make a difference in how he acts, I guess, but I think he’s never really thought about guys versus girls. Just what other people would think. Rachel’s good for him, that way.” 

“He cares what Rachel thinks, too.”

“Yeah. And look at her dads,” Puck points out. 

“True,” Kurt concedes. “I don’t know that it’s going to make him any more enthusiastic about a boy having a crush on him, though.”

“Okay, well, at least it might make him worry less about people like Azimio, right?” Puck says with a shrug. “Rachel’s not the worst for him, you know.” 

“No, she’s not. They’re kind of awkwardly cute together, even,” Kurt says. 

“I mean, I get where she’s coming from, sometimes. There are exactly four Jewish kids at McKinley. Maybe five, but I think only four.” 

“Honestly, I’ve always been a little surprised it was Finn she went after,” Kurt says. “I would have thought the Jewish football player turned glee club member would be the real catch.”

“Ooh, a football pun, good one,” Puck says, grinning at Kurt. “Nah, my reputation preceded me or whatever the saying is. Plus she’s known me since we were four or so.” 

“But think of the adorable collage she could make for your engagement party, with all those years of pictures!”

“If you’re solely going by collage potential, I should be dating her _and_ Finn,” Puck says with a laugh. 

“Well _that’s_ just being greedy,” Kurt says with a little laugh. “No boyfriend at all for me, but a boyfriend _and_ a girlfriend for you? The world is exceptionally unfair, in that case.”

“I _told_ you we had similar taste. So why are you not taking baked goods over to Matt’s house more often?” 

Kurt’s face turns pink. “The baked goods aren’t the problem. I’m not sure how to proceed after the bundt is sliced, let’s just say.”

“Tell him you want to see _Iron Man 2_ again, and does he want to, too?” Puck says. “Then you have drive him back home and you can eat more baked goods, and _then_ see where things go.” 

“What if he isn’t on the same page? How do I know how to tell where things are going?”

“Okay, what’s the absolute worst case? It’s Matt. He’d be super-nice about it,” Puck says. 

“I could be humiliated… _again_ ,” Kurt say, distressed by the mental pictures he can conjure up. 

“There wouldn’t be witnesses or anything, so it’d be less humiliation, probably. And if he’s a total jerk, Finn and I can go yell at him. Rachel, too, probably,” Puck says. “And what if he _is_ on the same page? That’d be good, right? Maybe he’s waiting on you to make the next move.” 

“What’s the next move?”

“Probably either the movie date or flat out kissing him,” Puck says. “You know, the more I think about it, the more I think he would be waiting on you.” 

“But I don’t—I’ve never done the kissing… thing,” Kurt finishes, feeling a little bit like he should just bolt back upstairs to escape this conversation. 

“I’m not showing you,” Puck says, shaking his head. “It’s pretty straightforward, though. And hey, didn’t you make out with Britt?” 

“I don’t think that really counts. Did you ever go on the car rides at Cedar Point when you were little? The ones that looked like scaled-down versions of Mustangs or motorcycles?”

“Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Fair, but same thing.” 

“Kissing Brittany is like riding one of those,” Kurt says. “You’re in a car. You’re holding a steering wheel. You’re _not_ driving.”

Puck laughs quietly. “Okay, fair enough, but it’s still some practice, right? Even if it wasn’t your preferred gender, you aren’t going to the rodeo totally green.” 

“Around and around a circle doesn’t give you any sense of how to control a car, Puck.”

“Sure it does. Lean into it and enjoy the ride,” Puck says, smirking a little. 

“How much should I enjoy it?” Kurt asks. “What’s the acceptable line to draw?”

“I think that’s up to you, and the person you’re kissing, you know?” 

“But how fast is too fast? How do I know?”

“Okay so… is there like, something you don’t want to do right now, no matter what?” Puck asks. He slides Joel off his shoulder into the crook of his arm. “Then back up a couple of steps from that.” 

“I’m honestly not entirely sure what all there is to do,” Kurt confesses. “I’ve Googled a little, but not too much.”

“Really?” Puck asks, looking almost excited. 

“Oh dear. You look like you’re about to pounce on me,” Kurt says. 

“This is totally good practice for me,” Puck says, almost beaming. “It’s like a dad thing. I can totally give you, my fake-brother, important sex information.” 

“Should I really be getting sex information from someone who is literally the poster boy for unsafe sex?” Kurt asks, giving Joel a pointed look and then raising his eyebrows. 

Puck shrugs. “Okay, add a condom to everything I say. Except the stuff that doesn’t involve a dick or two.” 

“Oh my god, we’re about to talk about dicks, aren’t we?”

“Dude. Bro. Dicks are involved.” 

“I haven’t even gotten to _kissing_ yet, Puck!”

“See, there’s your answer,” Puck says, looking pleased with himself. “Your line is dick involvement, for now.” 

“I didn’t say that,” Kurt says, “but is there something in between kissing and the, uh, dick involvement?”

“Oh yeah,” Puck says. “Definitely. We’re making progress.” 

“Okay, tell me details, but not too many details. Wait, do you have personal experience?” Kurt asks. 

“I thought we’d established it was all theoretical around here when it came to dude action,” Puck says. “You think I’ve had time to go hook up since then?” 

“I thought maybe you had some non-dick-related boy experience and you didn’t think it counted,” Kurt says with a shrug. 

“I’d count it,” Puck says. “Anyway, your hands are probably your new best friends, and _not_ like that. I can see you thinking it. Stop. There’s an innocent infant around here.” 

“I wasn’t thinking anything!” Kurt says, even though he was, a bit. 

“You totally were, ‘cause I was too,” Puck says with a grin. “Seriously, just think about what you’d like, you know? Start there. Listen to the guy you’re with. Matt, in this scenario.” 

“I don’t know what I’d like, other than not a girl.”

“Think about where you want _Matt_ to touch _you_ , see?” Puck says. 

Kurt knows he’s blushing furiously now. “I should have asked you for advice ages ago. I could have circumvented the whole basement incident.”

“Nah. I mean, maybe, but I don’t think that was really much about you in some ways. And something else would have happened.” Puck shrugs. 

Kurt frowns now slightly, eyebrows knitting together. “Oh?”

“Carole sprung the whole moving thing on Finn, that’s on her. And you would have wanted to do _something_ big. A grand gesture or whatever, for Finn,” Puck says. 

“Maybe if I had some of your skills at my disposal, it would have been a grand gesture that worked.”

“Skills don’t make someone change their orientation, remember? Or make them care less about what other people think. Either way, wouldn’t change anything right now.” 

Kurt sighs dramatically. “No. He’s perfectly content with Rachel Berry, I’m afraid.”

“Okay, that might be taking it too far the other way. He’s high-school happy. Which is good.” 

“Too happy for you to woo the both of them?” Kurt teases. 

“You think I could pull that off?” Puck asks with a laugh. “Poor Finn, he’d have to buy sixteen Hanukkah presents.” 

“If anyone could manage it, you could, but keep in mind that I’m the one with zero experience, so my faith in you probably only counts for so much.”

“Not to mention my combination secret weapon/hindrance here,” Puck says, nodding at Joel. 

“I know for a fact that at least fifty percent of Finn and Rachel adore your secret weapon,” Kurt says. 

“Yeah, but it’s that other fifty percent,” Puck says wryly. “At least they haven’t heard him scream at night.” 

“I’m very good at keeping secrets, you know.”

Puck laughs quietly. “So I shouldn’t have told Finn about the colic?” 

“Oh no! You already ratted yourself out?” Kurt asks. “Maybe he hasn’t told Rachel. She’s the one still on the fence about the baby thing, anyway. I think Finn would keep Joel in a heartbeat if you needed him to.”

“I think I have to consider there being a one or two percent possibility that he’d _kidnap_ Joel if he thought it was necessary,” Puck says with a grin. “I should text him and really confuse him when he wakes up. Just one text, ‘did you tell Rachel about colic’.” 

“What if he takes it as an encouragement to do so?”

“Okay, yeah.” Puck frowns, then brightens. “It can be ‘you didn’t tell Rachel about the colic did you’.” 

“That’s better wording, I think,” Kurt says. “It’s the only way to know for sure what your chances are. Not that I’m encouraging you, necessarily!” He holds up one hand in a ‘don’t get carried away’ gesture. “I just think you shouldn’t rule anything out.”

Puck grins. “You’re a little bit encouraging me. You want me to be one of those greedy bisexuals.” 

“You may as well embrace the stereotype if it’s to your benefit, right?”

“You’d _seriously_ be okay with that?” 

Kurt shrugs, a dramatic raising and lowering of his shoulders. “Is it really my place to _not_ be okay with it? So I might be living vicariously through you to an extent. Who does that hurt?”

“Uh, you,” Puck says. “And all joking aside, you are sorta my fake brother now, in a weird way.” 

“That’s very sweet of you, but I assure you that it won’t wound me to the core if you start dating both Rachel and Finn at the same time,” Kurt says with a small laugh. 

Puck looks skeptically at Kurt for a few seconds, then shrugs. “If you say so.” 

“I do say so,” Kurt says, “and clearly, any statements I make at three in the morning are one-hundred-percent binding.”

“Well, yeah, it’s like the in vino veritas thing, but with tiredness and the dark,” Puck says. “You know, like sleepover-truths.” 

“Hmm. Now that you mention vino, I think I read somewhere you can rub alcohol on a baby’s gums to help calm them,” Kurt says. 

“Maybe when you were reading _Little House on the Prairie_ ,” Puck says. “Not in the twenty-first century, you can’t.” 

“See? All the more reason for me to not date a single father,” Kurt says. “I’d do something illegal or dangerous, and I absolutely cannot pull off the orange jumpsuit look.”

Puck laughs. “Just move to a state that still uses stripes first.” 

“Vertical stripes _are_ very slimming.”

“I don’t think I actually know anyone who tries to look skinnier by wearing vertical stripes,” Puck says. “But I’ll keep that in mind.”


End file.
